


Dead and Alive

by serpentineshadows



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Brook-centric, Canon Compliant, Gen, No Dialogue, Pre-Canon, alternatively: brook and his terrible horrible no good day, inappropriately-timed almost-skull jokes but too sad to be jokes, lots of italics, mentions of canonical deaths, one line of comfort, or at least it should be, overuse of the words "the Florian Triangle"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 16:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19908721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpentineshadows/pseuds/serpentineshadows
Summary: Brook finally finds his ship and body in the Florian Triangle. He doesn't know what he expected, but it wasn't...this.





	Dead and Alive

**Author's Note:**

> bc [silver and gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15957290) is one of my favorite pieces i've written, here is another brook-centric piece (better-paced imo). i am happy that brook & straw hat pirates is now a Tag, even though sadly it is not a tag that works here. is brook-centric a necessary tag for a work that only lists brook as a character? ...yes, bc its not a Tag and it should be
> 
> warnings: body issues (being unhappy with/unused to having a skeletal body), mentions of death, and angst related to being stuck on a ship in the florian triangle for an unforeseeable amount of years
> 
> enjoy!!

The fog clinging persistently to the Florian Triangle is a menace. It blocks the sun, hides enemy ambushes, and makes it impossibly hard to find the remains of his old ship. Brook has no idea how long he’s been searching, stumbling upon countless shipwrecks that aren’t his crew’s. It feels like it’s been an eternity. Humming _Bink’s Sake_ to himself (despite having no throat or mouth to speak of) only staves off the loneliness for so long, but Brook is nothing if not loyal, determined to fulfill his promise to his crewmates, to Laboon. Finding his body, then finding his way back to Laboon, is the least he can do. So, that’s what he’ll do, despite the annihilation of his beloved crew still so fresh on his mind, this stupid fog that never abates like the loneliness that follows him around.

The Florian Triangle is so gloomy, so dreadful, that when he finally finds his ship, it feels like a dream. (Can he even dream in this state?) After wandering in circles, seeing the same mind-numbing scenery for who knows how long with nothing but his promises driving him, he’s finally achieved step one: finding his body. Except, he realizes, as his eyes (which he doesn’t have!) settle on the first pile of bones, this isn’t a dream. It’s a nightmare. He’s been lost for so long that his crewmates’ bodies—his _own_ body—have rotted, leaving behind their skeletal remains.

Brook leads his soul to the correct pile of bones, feeling like his world has been tilted so that nothing is recognizable anymore. Somehow, he has already messed up step one, and…Brook’s not _young,_ so it’s not like his world hasn’t been shaken up before. He dealt with having to leave his position as leader of a battle convoy, with abandoning his captain and half his crew for the sake of the future, with losing the other half all too quickly. It’s just that none of those situations hold a candle to this one, Brook muses, as he settles down into his horrifying new body. 

His first thought is _at least I still have my afro._ He pats his head full of hair: the one measly ray of light in this otherwise-bleak existence, surrounded by a soul-sucking fog.

Perhaps it’s a silly thing to feel comforted over, but Brook’s lived long enough to know it’s the little things that count sometimes. He’s not prideful enough to deny himself any comfort, no matter how small, because hope—fragile, yet surprisingly resilient—is the only thing pushing him forward.

Brook stands up: too fast, the cold wind chilling him to his bones (although…he only has bones!), his tattered clothing rather useless. It’s different, from both his experience as a normal human being and a wandering soul. He’s too-light, without flesh weighing him down. It’s strange; this skeletal body of his is very strange ( _and maybe if he focuses solely on the strangeness for long enough, he won’t have to think about how much he’s lost, in so little time_ ).

He picks up the Tone Dial from the ground, somehow still intact after however long he was lost in the fog, without the muscles that should be necessary and pockets it. Touching without skin is a strange ( _wrong, so wrong_ ) experience. 

Curious also, that he can see despite his lack of eyes, but he’s not complaining. It’s just that the scene he’s greeted with makes tears that shouldn’t be possible well up in his eye sockets. Bones, where there were once his beautiful, lively crewmates, dressed in achingly familiar clothes. The stuff of nightmares. The eerie almost-silence, interrupted by waves crashing against this creaking wreck of a ship, doesn't help.

He stumbles forward toward the closest pile, clumsy like he hasn’t been since his sudden growth spurt years and years ago, and reaches out. It’s real, the bone between his fingers ( _do they still count as fingers if they’re made of only bone?_ ), undeniably real. Proof that he’s living a nightmare.

Standing up once more, slower this time but still too fast, Brook surveys the deck. There are fewer skeletons than there should be ( _and oh, how can something that doesn’t exist any longer hurt so badly? his chest is an empty shell of what it once was_ ), but these are the remains of his crewmates. They deserve respectful burials, which is the very least of all that he can— _wants_ _to_ —offer his comrades, so Brook goes below deck to search for coffins that he knows were stored there before.

He passes by a cracked mirror and catches a glimpse of himself, nearly jumping through the ceiling in his fright. Sure, Brook had seen himself as a skeleton as he approached his dead body, but that was an out-of-body experience. This is another rush of reality hitting him as he lifts his hand, watching the skeleton in the mirror lift its hand as well. He touches his afro, and his reflection in the mirror follows suit. Brook blinks (somehow, _without eyelids_ ) and tries to imagine himself with skin, lips, a tongue, a nose, his usual shades, facial hair, everything normal, but when he sees himself in the mirror again, the strength of his imagination can’t prevent his horror.

A skeleton, that’s what he is now. He’s really a skeleton. No innards, no exterior skin. Just bones. His hand— _the bones on his hand_ —hurts, and the mirror’s shattered into tiny little pieces on the ground. He can still see glimpses of a ghastly, sickly white, the kind that he’s only ever seen surrounded by bloody flesh before, but now that’s all he’s made of.

It’s hard to tell how much time passes as Brook stands there, staring at the wall, processing, because he’s below deck and they’re in the Florian Triangle: the reason why the rest of his crewmates died, why he looks like this now. It must be a while, but that’s fine ( _no it’s not, he has to get to Laboon as soon as possible, fulfill his promise_ ). He turns, takes a step forward, wincing at the crunch of glass beneath his feet. There’s no blood to bleed, though. Only bones to scratch.

Brook marches through the ship robotically, avoiding all the mirrors he can. Eventually, he finds where the coffins are. He’s strong enough to lift them, but what’s the point of taking them above deck to weather strong winds, endure the horrible climate of the Florian Triangle? No, better to be safely ensconced down here within the embrace of the ship.

So, Brook rushes back to his crewmates, ignoring the place where glass presses against his feet ( _bone feet?_ ). He bundles up piles of bones, one in each arm, for each trip downstairs. He wants to be as gentle as possible, so he lays all of them down in their respective coffins, rearranging them as he sees fit. It takes multiple roundtrips, the area with the shattered mirror awful to pass through each time, but it’s worth it.

“I promise to meet up with Laboon again, so please, rest in peace,” Brook says to the room filled with coffins and skeletons, dead friends unable to revive themselves. So he can talk, just like he can somehow breathe and see and cry.

Then, because it is too quiet, Brook finds himself playing what’s saved on the Tone Dial: their final performance for Laboon’s sake. And he learns that he can sing as well.

This is yet another nightmarish scene that is somehow reality. A send-off for his friends. The Tone Dial playing the most heartbreaking (...though he has _no heart_ ) rendition of _Bink’s Sake_ he’s ever heard in his life with the voices of his friends cutting off, the instruments dying off one by one, the sickening thuds, until there’s only his voice left. Until he’s truly all alone.

For the longest time, Brook is reluctant to leave the room. It holds the people he shared much of his life’s happiness with, after all. But then, he remembers that Laboon’s still out there. It seems like he’s alone ( _so very alone_ ) right now, stranded in the Florian Triangle, but he has a purpose. With that in mind, Brook heads towards the ship’s wheel. Even if the Florian Triangle is rather hellish to navigate, at least he’ll be doing _something._

When he gets there and turns the wheel, however, nothing happens. He turns it the other way, but it has no real effect on the ship’s direction. He spins it so vigorously, it nearly breaks and gives him a heart attack, but the ship stubbornly heads in the wrong direction. Brook stands there, captain of a ghost ship, of _no one,_ and maybe trembles a little. The fight that took their lives was violent, destructive, so it’s no wonder that something’s broken. That something just happens to be related to his ability to navigate the ship. So, there’s nothing for him to do after all. No way to control the waves, to move towards step two: find Laboon.

He suddenly finds that he’s weary ( _bone-weary, ha_ ), ready to rest after searching frantically this whole time only to find…this. Brook crumples to the ground, closes his eyes, and _dreams._ Of his crew, alive and well: all of them, including Captain Yorki. They’re laughing together, music playing as usual, and oh! Laboon’s there, too.

 _Hello_ , he calls to Laboon, waving enthusiastically.

Laboon answers, just as eager to see him because it’s been so long; he’s quite small, considering how long it’s been, Brook thinks just as the ship jolts horribly, and he—

Wakes up, leaps to his feet, and sees a rundown ship. His bony white fingers. The unforgiving murkiness of the Florian Triangle. _Just a dream,_ he realizes, _better than reality._

He wonders, _how long will it take to escape?_

He hopes it will be short enough that the loneliness is brief, that his new skeletal body is still a novelty.

He expects it will take long enough that he’ll waste away, that his desire to see Laboon again will be all for naught.

He gets 50 long, exhausting years (the last five especially rough, _the stuff of nightmares again_ when he thought it couldn’t get any worse) but then, _finally._ A bright ray of sunshine, of _new possibilities_ to reinvigorate his life in the way the Yomi-Yomi Fruit couldn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> (although it was not as much of a Thing as i originally planned, my roommate wanted me to title this "afro angst" 
> 
> ..."afro comfort" would be more accurate tho)
> 
> also!! i have finally figured out how to get rid of that weird space btwn italics words and periods so i no longer have to manually adjust the spacing, yay!


End file.
